


Serviceable Seduction

by Author376



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, Seduction, Shiny Boots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:24:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Author376/pseuds/Author376
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duv Galeni survives his first brush with Imperial Counter Intelligence, gains the gratitude of the empire. The significance of shiny boots is also made clear to him. Innuendo and minor sexual content, references to prostitution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/pseuds/ExtraPenguin) in the [Bujold_Ficathon_2013](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Bujold_Ficathon_2013) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Duv Galeni, being seduced into the Service by shiny boots.  
> Or just being seduced.

Just because Duv Galeni had left his life as David Galen behind and chosen to study Barrayaran History did not mean he wanted to become _part of it_. Or, rather, let Duv make it clear that while he is not unopposed to _making_ history somehow he finds the thought of being a bloody footnote in it, like his father, appalling. That is why he’d left the resistance behind and rebuilt his life. 

Now it looks unfortunately as though all of that is going to be in vain. Moreover, not only is he about to become a bloody footnote in Barrayar’s already bloody history, but he’s offended that there is now a good chance that he’s not even going to become an _important_ one. Instead he’ll be doomed into the same obscurity that every name written _after_ Prince Heir Serg Vorbarra’s on the Escobaran War Memorial now suffers from. 

After a childhood destroyed by his father’s quest for vengeance, and a youth stained by the blood his involvement had laved his hands with just the thought is downright _insulting_. 

He’s trapped in a building with a madman with a bomb-vest strapped to his chest. Worse: it’s a madman from _Komarr_ and wasn’t he supposed to have escaped that by coming here? Prejudice he’d expected. Wholesale ignorance and cultural elitism he’d anticipated. Being blown up by an idiot five years younger than he was who was all but foaming at the mouth as he spouted _bad_ propaganda – and it’s low quality was another thing Duv found insulting. As David he’d written far better pamphlets!           

But, yes, back to the situation. He was in one of the more fascinating anachronisms Vorbarr Sultana still supported. During his morning run two weeks ago he’d stumbled on a real gem: a two-dimensional film theater. He hadn’t realized there were any of these still active in the Nexus considering that even most historical film footage from ancient Earth had been converted into holographic renderings decades ago. After university that very day Duv had taken himself and the half-finished doctoral thesis that was devouring his soul and gone back to the old brick building to see if it was truly what it seemed to be. 

He hadn’t been disappointed. In fact, he’d been delighted. Not only was the theater still active, but it played genuine two-dimensional films created during Dorca Vorbarra’s reign as well as historical entertainments it had requested and received from _Earth Itself_ via several historical archives! Here he could actually sit down and see such things as _Technicolor musicals_ and the lost genre of late twentieth century action films _in their original format_ , and it only cost _half a mark per ticket!_  

Duv had been in something like a theist’s Heaven since. He might have lacked any friendship or company in the last sixth months since her journeyed to Barrayar, but in the last two weeks he’d found _love_. When he grew up he wanted to marry Katherine Hepburn. Or possibly he wanted to _be_ Katherine Hepburn, he wasn’t sure. That kind of self-possession and poise was a delight to watch, though, a kind of intellectual and social _balm_ on his memories of his father’s livid rants. He also wondered about the effect that his socialization issues were having on him given the confusion. 

Back to the reason why he was currently missing the chance to write a paper on deconstructing the similarities between the post-civil war 19th century United States of America social strife in what had been the Confederate States of America and the Prole/Vor divide on Barrayar post-Cetagandan Occupation. 

The bomber was a shabby specimen, Duv noted critically, and that hinted at poor mission planning. This area near the University had rapidly gone up in the world and while it was now populated by students short on cash and the lower-end businesses that catered to them, it was an entirely different kind of shabby. This man’s scuffed and patched work boots and dirty, unstyled hair would have had the municipal guardsmen who patrolled regularly near the Imperial University all over him if not for a bad traffic pile up keeping them all on the other side of campus. 

There was, of course, a chance that it had all been planned that way, but Duv doubted it. 

“Make one move and I blow all of you inbred, murdering barbarians to tiny pieces!” The man shouted in a Komarran accent and Duv hid a wince; both at the painful memories and the terrible delivery. 

“You’re doing this entirely wrong you realize.” David told him, his own Komarran accent coming back to him despite the weeks of careful diction practice before he’d come to Barrayar. 

Every eye in the place swiveled to him, except a woman in the front row. She was dressed a touch more conservatively and nicely than the rest of the student crowd, and had the lights not been so dim he might have given a better description of her beyond her silhouette’s promise of thick, slightly wavy hair and a delicate upturned nose. David noted that the Komarran terrorist’s grip on the kill-switch attached to his suicide vest loosened a bit at the sound of his accent. 

Good. 

“Who are you?” The terrorist demanded. “What are you doing here?” 

“I’m David Galen,” _Good, that name got his attention._ Duv watched the grip on the kill-switch loosen further. “I came to watch _Gone With the Wind_. It’s a true classic; highly racist and deeply propagandized but very interesting for its social commentary on human development or the lack thereof. What are _you_ doing here, Mr…?” 

If his father had taught him nothing, Duv thought, it was how to remain calm in the face of the worst life had to offer. He could maintain a straight face and a level voice through every emotion: anger, irritation, fear, _pity_. Duv was surprisingly good at suppressing such emotions as well, at least until the danger was over and the bitter aftertaste kicked in. 

“I’m – I, wait I can’t tell you. Um… You’re _Ser Galen’s son_?” The Terrorist was looking at him with this hopeful expression that gave Duv a headache. He just hoped it wouldn’t become heartache later; headaches were considerably easier to treat. “I’m – dear, God, am I messing up something important? Brett said that there were going to be a lot of students here – rich Vor kids goofing off before a night of drinking and parties when they should be at lectures – but he didn’t say anything about anything _big_ , just a demonstration that we were serious and could get them on their own ground!” 

“Brett knows what he’s talking about.” _Whoever Brett is, he thinks you’re expendable. He’s probably not wrong if you were so eager to run to your doom; is that the only kill switch or does Brett have one in case you’re going to lose your nerve?_ It was either that, Duv thought, or _this_ was the distraction, not the car accident. If whoever-Brett-is had any sense he wouldn’t be attacking the young Vor at the university, either. It would only incite violence and hate against Komarrans and it wouldn’t achieve anything. _Definitely a distraction; I need to call someone_. 

Duv needed to call someone, anyway. David needed to distract this idiot so they wouldn’t get blown up. 

“Look, come down here – and get your thumb off of that trigger – and come down here so we can stop yelling over two-dozen Barrayaran kids and sort this out.” David stood up from his seat and moved towards the center aisle, and whoever Brett’s disposable agent was he all but ran down to meet him. 

David calmly gestured the man closer, watched carefully as he twisted the overlarge detonator around in his hand so his thumb no longer hovered over the trigger, and then Duv hit him in the jaw with a fist backed by every ounce of frustration, anger, and loneliness he possessed. He only got one punch in, though, before the distinctive buzz of stunner fire filled the air over the sound of Atlanta burning and everything went all fuzzy and faded to gray.

 

~oOo~

 

Duv had had to undergo Fast Penta interrogations before, but this was the first one where he could say he wasn’t _nervous_. For once he had nothing to hide, he wasn’t exhausted by the decision to confess and hope for a pardon due to his age, and there was no new life looming in front of him. Hopefully, at least, his student visa _could_ end up cancelled. That said, Duv didn’t think it would be; so far Imperial Security had been nearly as polite as it had been efficient. 

Eventually a Major walked into the room, introduced himself, and asked a few very pointed questions about how he’d provably known nothing about the plot to introduce a mutagenic compound into the municipal water purification system and still had managed to essentially be the lynch pin in thwarting it. It was a tiring conversation that involved a disturbingly thick – though Duv personally thought not thick _enough_ – folder on his previous life being employed for reference. He wasn’t restrained during the interview, however, and the Major let him go with nothing more than his signature on a non-disclosure form and, of all of the strange things, a firm handshake and… his gratitude. 

No, that wasn’t quite right. 

 _The gratitude of the Empire_. 

Somehow, when it came with a handshake from underneath those hovering, silver, Horus eyes it was a little more _weighty_ than the catch-phrase like platitude that was often delivered to _loyal_ Komarrans. Back home that almost ironic phrase was given for everything from information on an upcoming terrorist action to your tax returns, and Duv had never managed to take it seriously. 

“In that case,” Duv cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “I don’t have my transit pass – I was only a few blocks away from my apartment and didn’t need it.” 

He didn’t want to outright say his student budget wouldn’t support cab fare, but it _wouldn’t_ , and if ImpSec was really that grateful maybe they’d offer him a lift? Instead the Major actually _smiled_ at him, broadly, and maybe with a hint of commiseration – or was that envy? – in his expression. 

“Actually, one of the – erm – grateful public has offered you a ride back.” The Major – who hadn’t mentioned his name – cleared his throat. “A word to the wise: I don’t know what it’s like on Komarr, but here we try to _never_ disappoint a grateful lady.” 

And then the man offered him a lazy salute – could that be called a salute – and vanished out the door. He was quickly replaced by a corporal in the same ubiquitous undress greens, and Duv was led through a maze of windowless hallways back to the equally soulless entry foyer of Imperial Security Headquarters. The woman – he recognized her upturned nose – from the front row was sitting on a comfortable looking office chair that looked entirely out of place in the forbidding stone entryway. She was also cleaning a pretty enameled and silver-plated stunner.

 

~oOo~

 

 

“Don’t know, don’t care, darling.” Tanya grinned at him and Duv felt his lips quirk up. “I think we both know what I invited you back to my place for, and it wasn’t fond reminiscences of your  manly heroics today, _or_ a recitation on your thesis.” 

It had been envy _and_ commiseration, he decided. 

Tanya Valois had definitely not been born with that name, and she had a good enough education that when he made a crack about medieval French royal families she’d asked him what made him think she _wasn’t_ a princess? 

_“Even Emperors have needs, hero."_

That said, Duv hadn’t said no to an offer to go back to her place and celebrate his survival of a trip to “Cockroach Central”. Plenty of people went in there, no matter who their father was, and didn’t come out, let alone come out with a handshake and the gratitude of the Empire. 

 _“And don’t think they just hand those words out here, my boy, oh-no. In that building you’re only a sneeze away from the Imperial Presence and you can bet that if they offered that kind of praise it wasn’t without a reference.”_ 

 _“Was it annotated?”_ Duv had asked as he sat there in the back of the woman’s groundcar and watched her smooth the folds of her skirt down her thighs. 

 _“In full M.L.A. format.”_ Tanya had purred back, her eyelashes – artfully fluffed and augmented – lowered over depthless brown eyes. 

“If you want to add me to your collection, I’m afraid to tell you that you’re barking up the wrong tree.” Duv grinned over his glass of wine, finally becoming comfortable as he realized that while ImpSec might not have decided to unofficially sanction this meeting they weren’t precisely behind it. It was just as convenient a place as any to watch him for the next few days while they dealt with the last fallout from this highly secret mess. 

It should have bothered him that one of the other students who’d called ImpSec was going to get total credit for stopping the supposed bomber, but Duv found he liked it. Let what little anonymity he had remain intact; maybe he’d eventually even make some friends. 

“That salute you’re throwing says otherwise.” Tanya smirked at him as she lowered herself with a sigh into the other large armchair in the room. 

The room was sinfully comfortable. The carpet was plush and dark and wall-to-wall rather than the usual wood flooring everyone on Barrayar seemed to love. The furniture was not only overstuffed to the point of being soporific, but conveniently upholstered in the latest in easily disinfected galactic fabrics. The color scheme was a combination of old hardwood bookshelves, dark shades of cream, and muted garnet. 

It looked like a one woman bordello, and an expensive one. Looking around Duv couldn’t help thinking that, for once, this place he’d walked into was _exactly_ what it appeared to be. Not the least because lining one wall – with a panel that could be extended to hide its existence – was a built in, floor-to-ceiling shelving unit featuring row after row of brightly polished men’s cavalry boots. 

“Alas,”Duv looked down at his tented trousers. “my vow to never salute a Barrayaran is broken. How shall I live with the dishonor?” 

His hostess spluttered into her glass of wine and then laughed deeply, tipping her head back and chasing an escaped drop of red wine down the impressive topography of her cleavage with one pale, lacquered fingertip. 

“I swear, I keep expecting Plautus from you only to find you’re just Terence in a stolen toga.” The woman laughed. 

“Where did you get your education?” Duv asked instead, as fascinated by the blatant intelligence the woman showed as her blatant sexuality. 

Duv had never really thought of traditional Barrayaran structural underwear as sexy before. Now, faced with a woman wearing only a corset, stockings and garters, and a transparent chemise beneath the corset he was finding that position reversed. For one, it appeared that there was a certain fascination to the slightly less-rigorous depilation practiced by Barrayaran women; especially those possessed of almost dome-fair skin _and_ very dark, luxuriant hair. For another, while Duv had _written_ about the famine-based female body-type preferences sometimes found amongst older Barrayaran men he’d never been that drawn to it himself. Now, looking at the lush curves almost spilling out of both ends of that corset, and peeking at him from the lacy bottom edge of the chemise, Duv felt far more integrated into the local culture than ever before. 

Obviously, there was a lot to be said for cultural immersion. 

“Oh, please,” Tanya laughed again, but this time it held a mocking note as she waved one hand in lazy dismissal of his question, “girls in my profession don’t get an education, Duv.” 

“Which one do you mean?” Duv asked, emboldened by wine and a very crazy afternoon. _You have the gratitude of the Empire…_ “Prostitution or Counter Intelligence?” 

“Intelligence?” Tanya went on, rolling her eyes without a hitch and standing up slowly to shake her curls out of the knot they were captured in, one pin at a time, as she walked over to where Duv was steady being absorbed by the cushions of his own oversized armchair. “What does a whore need with _that_?” 

After that Duv’s mouth was entirely too busy with other things to support his theory. His hands had much better things to support too, and were entirely involved in doing just that as the corset fluttered its way to the floor. Hours later Tanya repeated her question about just why he’d thought she couldn’t add him to her “collection” in the first place. 

“I’ve never owned a pair of shiny cavalry boots in my life.” Duv told her, drunk with several things as the sun began to rise and she brutally ousted him from her bed, ran him through her shower – though she made it up to him somewhat there – and provided him with a breakfast of hot groats before kicking him out. 

The woman had given him the strangest look, as though his response made no sense at all, and then she’d begun to laugh again. This time it was a deep, heartfelt, rolling sound that filled the room and didn’t contain a hint of mocking. Duv liked it. 

“Can’t have that, now can we?” Tanya had stood up from the table, then, pulling the top of her robe closed – Duv approved of its rebellious nature despite his own reformation – and walked out of her kitchen and out of view into the living room. She didn’t bother to saunter while she did it, though, and that rather cheered Duv. 

“Here, try these on.” Duv looked up from his groats, blinking at the mirror-finish on the black boots she held out to him. 

“Um, Tanya, I’m assuming you got those-.” Duv started but a finger landed over his mouth as the boots were settled in front of him on the table. 

“I’m a generation too soon to go in the front door, Duv.” The woman he would later learn was Vorbarr Sultana’s most expensive courtesan told him, her voice dead serious. “My brother barely made it in through the side door and he’s particulate atoms hovering over Escobar right now. If – _if_ by some miracle they let you walk in any door at all? Well, then, do it in _style_ for me.” 

Duv had no idea how to answer that, and Tanya was going on anyway. 

“Now, I’m going to go change into something presentable, so make sure you’re gone when I’m out. I don’t expect to be seeing you again; you can’t afford me.” 

“No,” Duv agreed, pushing his half-finished groats away and reaching out to take the boots automatically. “Academics isn’t something one goes into for the pay.” 

“Neither is the Caravanserai, but some of us get out of that.” The woman – who _was_ a good decade older than Duv, and probably quite a bit more, he realized  - told him wryly, and the final kiss she dropped on his forehead was almost gentle as she sashayed away behind closed mahogany doors.

 

~oOo~

 

Years later one of the greatest mysteries in ImpSec’s files – one which was never satisfactorily answered – was how in the Nexus Duv Galeni had ended up with a pair of the Emperor’s boots.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That bit with Tanya and Gregor I promised.

“I don’t know if I want to sleep with you.” Gregor holds in a wince at the first words out of his mouth.

            Cordelia had gone to a lot of trouble to try and make this special for him while still keeping him alive through it and avoiding scandal. Not that the Emperor of Barrayar having female companionship of the sort that came with a nice monetary settlement would shock anyone, but it was the kind of thing they were trying to avoid encouraging in the younger generation that Gregor was supposed to lead into the bright future. It was simply a fact that the future was only slightly brighter than the past and Gregor had no idea where _he_ wanted to lead anyone, and whose idea any of it was half the time.

            Gregor never felt more like a stupid kid, unsuited and useless for the position he’d been born to fill than when he got resentful of everything Aral Vorkosigan had done for him. It wasn’t as though he could have ruled the Empire as a five-year-old child. God alone knew he’d probably _never_ run it as well as Regent Admiral Lord Vorkosigan.

            “I don’t know if I want to sleep with you, either.” The answer Gregor got was frankly shocking. “Honestly, I think Illyan asked everyone what they thought about this _except_ me. With your permission, sire, I would like to stage a mortally embarrassing scene at the expense of your Chief of Security at the Residence Garden Party next week.”

            Not one to act before thinking, Gregor sat back and considered this request.

            “What, exactly, would this mortally embarrassing scene be composed of?” The Emperor of Barrayar asked the prostitute.

            Or should he call her a concubine? What title did a woman of her strange status within the Barrayaran social hierarchy prefer? Talk about a social question he couldn’t refer to Lady Alys!

            “An inference of late payment made at a suitably subtle volume in front of Countess Vormuir.” Tanya Valois smiled crookedly at him as she sighed and sat down across from him on a low, plush sofa with a cheerful floral pattern of ivy and lavender.

            “ _Ah_.” Gregor considered how awkward he felt right now versus his loyalty to Simon Illyan, waffled for a few moments, and made his mind up. “Granted.”

            People said worse things about Simon than that he’d stiffed a hooker after all. Not that Gregor was even _thinking_ that phrase around Lady Vorkosigan. Cordelia’s assessment of the many social and cultural prerogatives and inequalities rolled up into that thought would be enough to put him off of food for a week if he guessed right.

            “Can I make you some tea and snacks maybe, instead?” The beautiful, lush woman sitting across from the nineteen-year-old emperor asked with an almost shy kindness, and Gregor looked into her dark eyes and found a strangely fond sadness there. “If nothing else the Regent’s Wife has assured us of our privacy for quite a while, has she not?”

            “I, well, yes.” Gregor replied, his mind instantly going to the security briefing he’d had to endure before this rendezvous could be fully arranged.

            Included in the briefing had been an assurance that it was safe to eat or drink anything that the professional mistress known as Tanya Valois offered him. Simon had even offered, his expression even more blank that usual, that the woman in question was considered a very good cook. To which, of course, Lady Alys – who had appeared unannounced at the briefing with the intriguing result of Simon Illyan looking uncomfortable for the split second between Gregor’s hostess walking through the door into the Green Parlor and the Imperial Security Chief retrieving his usual unreadable expression – had made a very bland observance of the food probably being _heavy_. Gregor was developing a certain thought – it was not necessarily a _good_ thought, but it might develop into the only piece of unlooked for information he’d ever gotten on any of the people who had raised him – about why she might have said that.

            Gregor had to admit that as far as sheer physical attraction went he _liked_ the look of Tanya Valois. She was not a tall woman by Barrayaran standards, coming only up to Gregor’s own shoulder, but she had the kind of figure envied by drifting snow everywhere. He couldn’t speak to her legs, as she was fully clothed in a simple-but-lovely gown of purple satin with little puffs of sleeve accented with black lace. Each arm came in lightly muscle, soft curves with dimpled elbows. Her waist was tight, but it drifted upwards into a little froth of black lace and a wide oval collar that displayed cleavage that could have held every stylus on Gregor’s desk upright had he had them handy to… reposition. Her collarbones were visible, but softened into little sweeping wings that went up into a long neck and a warmly heart-shaped face with dimples in both cheeks.

            Gregor found her hair lovely, too. Thick, lush curls blacker than his own hair and pulled loosely together at the back of her neck by a silver clasp rather than the elaborate frothy knots she usually wore when she was attending some Residence party. Moreover, other than a pair of small golden roses resting in her earlobes wasn’t wearing any jewelry; which was _very_ different than her usual glittering, almost obscene accoutrement of jewels.

            “Is this your home?” Gregor asked, the observations piling on top of one another as he turned his head from side to side, realizing that he had, perhaps, made an assumption due to information not contained in his briefing. “I had assumed Imperial Security owned this location, but you don’t look as though you were expecting to… entertain.”

            _Unless she dresses differently for emperors_ ; Gregor had heard rumors about her and his grandfather, but had dismissed them. Tanya looked only a few years older than him, and not nearly old enough to have been a mistress to Emperor Ezar as she was rumored to have been by the more scandal-mongering women and men of the Vor Class. She would have been barely in puberty at the time of Emperor Ezar’s death and in the last few years of his life Gregor knew his grandfather was in no physical condition to entertain a woman of such reputedly lusty energies as this one.

            “I consider this my home, yes.” The woman answered honestly as she returned from the carved wooden archway that separated the spacious, modern kitchen from the heavy antique furnishings of the den she had led him to upon his entry into the house.

            “Ah.” Gregor replied, running out of words as the woman he was supposed to lose his virginity to set a large burled walnut tray with silver handles onto the table in front of him.

            The tea set matched the house that his Armsmen and security had brought him to well, he thought. They were not heavy and awkward, but they were the sturdier style of ceramics favored by the Country Vor rather than the delicate porcelain favored by women like Lady Alys. Their pattern was a pale fawn background decorated with swirls of darker and lighter brown that set Gregor at as much ease as the heavy scent of the dark tea she was pouring. The large platter of carrot cake slices thinly iced appealed to him as well; he’d never had Miles’ sweet tooth.

            “My first lover bought me this home; or gave it to me, I should say. He didn’t have to buy it.” The woman offered, breaking the silence with a voice much less provocative and pitched an octave higher than the voice he was used to hearing purr across parties and occasionally in the darkened back halls behind the Council of Counts meeting chamber.

            “People say that my grandfather brought you up out of the country to be his mistress.” Gregor ventured, finding himself relaxing a bit as no mention was made of bedroom activities.

            Not that he was against the idea, mind you, the longer he contemplated the full curves and deep black line where her breasts were pressed against each other in the bodice of that dress the more enticing it sounded. He just wasn’t quite ready to go in without a bit more intelligence, as Miles might say. Besides, when was the last time he got to talk to someone he didn’t already know, who didn’t have a political agenda – or at least one he’d been briefed on -, or whose actions weren’t being dictated by his Regent?

            Lord Vorkosigan’s refusal to have anything to do with his wife’s suggestion and his Security Chief’s plans on fulfilling it had maybe been the single most reassuring part of the planning process…

            “He did, some fifty-years-ago in the spring.” Tanya replied, putting a second piece of carrot cake on Gregor’s plate. “You’re almost as deplorably skinny as he was, too, how do you feel about ice cream?”

            Gregor stared, trying to parse the idea that this bewitching creature, who seemed nearly as youthful as he was, could possibly have known – let alone _known_ – his grandfather.

            “I’m just shy of a year younger than your Regent, sire.” The woman’s smile was soft and wry as she sat back in her own chair, taking a dainty bite of her own cake slice. “I have the advantage of being one of the few war-bastards to survive; let alone the _only_ one who can boast of having been given citizenship and asylum by Dorca himself _in utero_.”

            Gregor stared some more, became aware that his jaw was hanging open just a bit, closed it, and then took a bite of cake while he processed this.

            “ImpSec knows you’re half-Ghem, of course.” Gregor allowed, forgetting his nervousness in his curiosity. A bit of his horror lingered, though, and he found his eyes avoiding her cleavage; there were things he liked having in common with Ezar – his eyes – and things he had no intention of sharing with him. Bed partners were _definitely_ in the second category.

            “Of course.” Tanya offered him another wry smiled and sat back. “Now, sire, may I ask _you_ a question?”

            “You may, my lady.” Gregor’s manners took over even as he could almost feel Alys frowning at him for calling Tanya Valois a _lady_.

            Alys’ hatred of Vorbarr Sultana’s most infamous scarlet woman was famous, after all.

            “What do _you_ want to do?” Tanya asked him, almost gently. “I am ever at your service.”

            The words were the lush purr and inherent offer he’d heard from her in the past, when she was speaking the same phrase to this or that Lord or Count who was her newest sponsor/conquest. There was an honesty there, and maybe even a tiny thread of _hope_ that Gregor’s well-trained sense of self and what Cordelia sometimes called his _sense of others_ was picking up around the edges.

            “I’m afraid I am, well, I won’t be requiring your _particular_ services.” Gregor mentally thanked the stars and whatever friendly god might be listening that he had a euphemism ready for that question.

            “Indeed.” She smiled at him, and again it was just a smile; none of the overtones of seduction he was used to hearing from the woman in those few instances their paths crossed during the year. “May I offer you my services in finding someone you might enjoy making a _particular acquaintance_ with instead?”

            “I, er-,” Gregor’s mind tripped over the question, but somehow talking with this lush woman, who had apparently slept with his grandfather and was _half-Cetagandan_ wasn’t as strange or as uncomfortable as talking about losing his virginity surrounded by the people who had raised him and ordered his life since before his sixth birthday. “I will be happy to consider any suggestions you might have.”

            “May I inquire to your majesty’s preferences?” This time the smile was just the slightest bit playful and Gregor found himself smiling along despite the oddity of the whole situation.

            “I don’t know if I’m _aware_ of my preferences.” Gregor allowed, then frowned. “But maybe anyone female, safe, reasonably near my own age, and discrete?”

            “Svelte, zaftig?” The woman asked again, as if she were going shopping.

            It was somehow less stressful than the very long, cheerful discussion about the many variances of sexuality he’d had a week before with Cordelia, and a lot less clinical than the safety and security briefing he’d gotten from Simon.

            “Zaftig.” Gregor said, firmly, his eyes staying away from that treacherous, possibly incestuous cleavage. “And, um, _un_ graceful.”

            “In other words, nothing like the willowy, tall, well-trained Vor beauties everyone _expects_ you to marry.” Tanya smiled. “I’ll look into it. Security expectations mean that it could take a bit of doing, you understand.”

            “I don’t mind waiting.” Gregor replied, feeling himself relaxing further into the heavily padded, tall leather wingback chair he’d settled into when he arrived. “You’ll have to discuss this with ImpSec.”

            “Oh, don’t worry, Sire.” Tanya drawled, some of that purr of innuendo touching her tone and dropping it lower down the feminine register again. “ImpSec and I have plenty of _history_.”

            Gregor blinked at that, looked at the elaborate, old fashioned, gilt-bronze and glass clock on the big mantel of the den and paused in thought. He had absolutely nowhere to go or any call upon his schedule until the next day at noon and it was only eight in the evening now. Looking around himself at the lovely, plush, dark paneled room surrounding him Gregor felt almost giddy at the sudden realization of how much _time_ he had, and nobody to tell him what to do with it. Oh, they all expected him to do certain things with it, but his _privacy_ was more assured than at any other time at the moment.

            Picking up his second piece of carrot cake, after taking another sip of now luke-warm tea, Gregor nibbled and examined the room. The house itself was a sturdy stone thing with immense oak beams. It had the look of an old hunting lodge and was buried in one of the largest and oldest forests in the Vorbarra District. Not only did Tanya own the house, but also a substantial amount of the forest herself; which must come to some substantial income given that a great deal of the forest was hickory or walnut and both the nuts from the trees and the wood itself was valuable.

            “Was this,” Gregor hesitated and plunged on, resting a hand on the arm of the chair he’d taken. “Was this my grandfather’s chair?”

            It was the only piece of furniture in the room that was made to the height of an average Barrayaran male. Everything else was tailored to the shorter, plumper proportions of the woman he was sitting across from.

            “It was.” Tanya agreed.

            She didn’t comment to ask him if he would like to talk, or chat him up, she just sat back, refreshed her own tea, and looked at him. Not expectantly, not even hopefully. Just… Gregor couldn’t place the look. There was fondness there, and sadness, and maybe just a touch of memory. Whatever it was, it was not a look that required him to do anything but sit, and Gregor felt oddly encouraged to talk; here was someone who had known his grandfather who was not wound up in the Regency.

            “How did you meet him?” Gregor asked.

            “My mother was a Greek Vor-woman of lower estate, but considered exceptionally beautiful.” Tanya replied with a little crooked smile. “If she was rather short, well, the Ghem-officers found that _exotic_ next to their own women. She had been rejected by her husband due to giving birth to three mutant children – quickly taken care of, of course, and found herself at loose ends.”

            “So she began to gather information for the Resistance?” Gregor sat forward as somewhere inside him the small child who loved heroic stories sat forward, hoping to hear one with a heroine who was _Barrayaran_ but had a happier ending than his mother’s tale.

            Barrayaran women didn’t do as well as Betans in the stories of his own childhood, not that anyone bothered retelling them to someone who’d lived through them.

            “She made a deal with Dorca, as my mother wasn’t very patriotic at heart.” Tanya gave him a crooked smile. “If he would allot her a pension and permit her to keep a half-Ghem child – she believed, correctly, that Ghem-genes would be dominant and balance out whatever was wrong with her – then she would be one of Barrayar’s Patriotic Whores. There were quite a few, you know, and _they_ never got a medal for their labors.”

            “I can just see the General Staff’s faces if I put forward an Imperial Order to that effect.” Gregor snorted. “If the women themselves didn’t move to assassinate me for revealing their secrets.”

            “Oh, I don’t know.” White teeth, even and perfect, flashed between plump red lips. “I can think of a few great-grandmothers who would be as proud as peacocks over it. Not many, mind, but one or two of the least shameless old dragons on Barrayar come to mind.”

            Gregor  
played the idea of suggesting this out in his mind, licked his lips, and stalled on the idea of the expression on Lady Alys’ face. Maybe when he was older…

            Always when he was older.

            “So, she kept you and you were raised…?” Gregor asked again, curious about this woman.

            “Here and there, mostly in armed camps.” Tanya’s smile was softer this time, with no teeth, and the tail of black curls down her back bounced with the soft way she shook her head. “Anyway, to get back to your question, I met your grandfather at Prince Xav’s house. His wife was poisoned during at the end of the war and never quite recovered. That’s why she died so young for a Betan. I met Ezar there during Mad Yuri’s war, when I was a child, and became his mistress when I was sixteen.”

            Not Emperor Ezar this time, just Ezar. Gregor felt something inside him open up hungrily at the way she talked about his grandfather. Despite only remembering him as a dying, pale, ghost of a man Gregor’s grandfather and his reputation loomed impossibly large in his life. Not that Gregor wasn’t surrounded by giants, but Ezar was a _dead_ giant and thusly by far the least threatening when compared to the likes of his living parental figures.

            “What was he liked, and did you know my grandmother?” Gregor sat forward a little, balancing his elbows on his knees.

            Nobody in the room thought to correct his posture with a meaningful look.

            “I did know your grandmother!” The non-mistress laughed, grinning back at him and putting her teacup down and linking her fingers together over one knee. “Everyone always used to say how _poorly_ Odelle and Ezar got along, but they were quite wrong. They weren’t in love, but they were pleasant to each other, and fond. Odelle just never got over the fear of the Massacre. You have to understand, Yuri all but raised her and she never would have believed he’d try to hurt her before the massacre happened; if he’d even meant her to be on his list and not put her there during some psychotic break by accident.”

            Gregor blinked. _Never_ in his life had he heard it inferred that even the smallest part of Yuri’s Massacre might not have been Yuri’s fault, or somehow excused by his mental condition. _Psychotic_ was, in fact, too clinical a word to be attached to the man. It was the kind of diagnose that got people committed, rather than dismembered, on worlds other than Barrayar.

            “Were you friends?” Gregor asked, trying to sort out the idea of a wife and mistress being friends with each other and how the man involved with both of them fit in the mix.

            “Of a sort.” Tanya told him, after a moment’s thought. “I was beneath her status, you understand, she was a Princess. She was a friendly sort, if very shy, though, and… Hmm, I’m sure your Regent’s wife would have a word for it, but your grandmother didn’t care for the bedchamber. She didn’t _hate_ the act, you understand, but it wasn’t something she had any interest in.”

            “Asexual.” Gregor immediately offered, because Cordelia _did_ have a word for it and he’d just had to sit through the entire excruciating talk about it all with her a few days before.  
            “Sounds about right.” Tanya agreed. “Anyway, that and your grandfather’s abysmal sperm count were why your father was an only child.”

            Gregor paused, mulling over whether he was horrified to hear about his grandfather’s sex life and reproductive issues and found himself unbothered. Ezar was… just far enough away from his heart that he didn’t yearn to talk to him, like he sometimes did his father, or his mother. This strange, intimate portrait of the East Garden’s designer was not something he wanted to let go.

            They talked for the rest of the night, and the sun was coming up when Gregor noticed how long he’d gone without sleep. He didn’t regret it, though. He’d pulled all-nighters before, both as Emperor and at the Academy. This was by far better than being kept away by duty, fear, or studying.

            He’d learned that despite rumors to the contrary Tanya had been Ezar’s exclusive mistress from shortly after her sixteenth birthday until Ezar’s death. He discovered that his enjoyment of plain paper crossword puzzles was inherited from his grandmother, and that she’d gotten Ezar himself hooked on them. He learned that Tanya, even up to his grandfather’s last days, would come into his sick room armed with a book of such and a pen and would do them with him to distract him from the pain.

            Tanya never said she’d loved the old man she’d been with for the duration of her Barrayan-youth – her Ghem genes meant the _appearance_ of youth would be with her for far longer, especially with adequate medical care and careful management – but Gregor had been raised by Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan. If they had failed him in anything it was in presenting him with the picture of a loveless but successful political marriage; the Admiral and the Betan Captain loved each other to distraction. Gregor could see the footprints of the same feeling trailing through Tanya’s words.

            He learned about others who were never talked about, too. His grandmother’s shy, nervous personality was painted for him as well as a few anecdotes of his Regent’s youth that were like drops of rain in a hot pail they evaporated so fast when compared with who Aral Vorkosigan had grown into. There was a war story Ezar had told Tanya about Piotr Vorkosigan, hemorrhoids, and a massively humiliating allergic reaction to a Betan medical cream that would, undoubtedly leave him afraid to look Count Vorkosigan in the eye for months to come.

            He heard about Tanya’s choice to come out of retirement during the days after the Pretendership when she’d begun her work for ImpSec in counter intelligence. He heard a story about Lady Alys’ courtship with Lord Padma that Gregor thought about asking Ivan about, then decided that he wouldn’t. Gregor felt himself folding all of this talk, all of these stories about his family and his history away inside of himself like some of his planet’s older citizens sewed marks into the inside of their clothing. It was something precious to savor as _his_ , and not the Imperium’s.

            Randomly, he also learned that Simon Illyan was the _only_ person on Barrayar with a smaller pool of possible sexual partners than Gregor himself had. Which, once more, put paid to any attraction he might have had for Tanya thoroughly.

            “Sometimes I just wonder how I’ll fill any of their boots.” Gregor found himself confessing, tired and hoarse just before his Armsman was scheduled to knock on the door.

            “Boots?” Tanya yawned into her hand, but her eyes were as dark and sharp as obsidian chips. “Stay right there, young man.”

            He’d become _young man_ instead of _sire_ sometime after midnight and he cherished each of those two syllables deeply. He wondered if this was what love was like? Other, of course, than his complete lack of desire to have sexual relations with Tanya; which, now that he thought about it, made it seem far less likely that this was love and more likely than a combination of sleep deprivation and giddiness over spending so long talking to a stranger so freely.

            A few moments later Tanya came down with a bundle of embroidered cloth carried closely in her arms. She held it almost like a child and Gregor sat up, wondering what on earth it could be, and how he could refuse the oncoming gift. He’d had it happen before, people offering him things far too precious to take, but doing so in a manner that would make it not only rude, but _cruel_ to refuse it. What she set on the low table in front of him, though, and unwrapped from its velvet and golden threaded prison wasn’t something that _looked_ precious, at all.

            It was a pair of boots, but instead of being tall, shiny, and delightfully martial they were something else entirely. They were the first generation, lace-up, infantryman’s boots that Barrayar had gotten. In fact, they weren’t even that; Gregor could just make out the embossed symbol on the heel showing they were generic boots purchased off of Beta Colony.

            Rather than starting their life as shiny, nearly-to-the-knee, and black, these boots went halfway up the calf, laced, and had always been a dull dun color. They had been resoled in leather after the rubber had worn off, thick and hobnailed, but even that was nearly worn down to paper-thinness after how much use they’d gotten. The laces were leather and one was chewed through in one place and tied together. They were, in short, the ugliest boots that the Emperor of Barrayar had ever been in the personal presence of.

            “I collect boots, now.” Tanya explained, gently running a finger over the frayed, worn, seam at the back of the left boot, where the boot-strap had been pulled off. “It’s part of my reputation.”

            Gregor nodded; he’d heard the story of Tanya Valois’ wall of boots gleaned from her many male clients. It was something of a status symbol in Vorbarr Sultana society to have your boots on her wall now.

            “These were Ezar’s.” Tanya added and Gregor felt a chill in the fire-warmed room. “He’d already given me so much – enough to live here, comfortably for the rest of even my long lifespan – but these are what I asked him for when he died.”

            “His boots?” Gregor asked, confused.

            “Your grandfather once told me that his swords made him a Vor.” Tanya’s voice was quiet in the soft late morning light filtering into the room through the thick drapes. “That Piotr Vorkosigan made him Emperor, but he said that these boots made him a man.”

            Gregor swallowed and looked back up into those dark, dark eyes and the thick black lashes that framed them. The war-born child before him, who had her own dark secrets and had probably been raised with her own fears smiled back.

            “He wore these all through the Occupation, and through Yuri’s war, and sometimes after… Anyway. If you want boots to fill, these are empty.”

            In the end she wouldn’t let him refuse. The best he could do was trade. Sleep addled and rather touched in ways that Simon Illyan had no doubt _not_ intended he insisted she take his own tall, shiny black boots in return. Then, barefoot he’d walked out of her house, the well-wrapped bundle tucked into his arms. He did not submit it for scan, to his security chief’s obvious discomfiture. Instead he stashed them in the back of his closet, too afraid to try them on.

            Several years later, after Vordrozda led him into some of the greatest stupidity of his life, after he’d tried to kill himself, and after he’d run away from his sworn oaths only to stand in front of his Prime Minster – the giant who had raised him – and refuse to bend he came back to his oaths and his palace. There, standing in the back of his closet he sat down on the bench in his dressing room and tried on his grandfather’s boots.

            They fit perfectly.

            As for what became of _his_ boots? Well, Gregor _did_ see them again, but out of sheer contrariness he didn’t clear the matter up with his security at all.

 


End file.
